{"id":11617,"date":"2023-10-20T10:15:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/?p=11617"},"modified":"2023-10-20T10:30:03","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:30:03","slug":"in-cook-islands-debut-a-shuttle-time-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/whats-new\/in-cook-islands-debut-a-shuttle-time-success-story","title":{"rendered":"In Cook Islands’ Debut, A Shuttle Time Success Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships 2023 marks a landmark for Cook Islands as they make their debut at a BWF event. Their participation is a Shuttle Time<\/a><\/em><\/span> success story, for all six members of the team have come up through BWF\u2019s flagship schools programme.<\/p>\n

Shuttle Time, which started in the Cook Islands in 2015, is currently running in 20 schools, mostly in the capital Rarotonga. The programme engages over 1500 participants every year.<\/p>\n

Thomas Mereana-Ngauru, President of Cook Islands Badminton Association, has a satisfied smile as he watches the team competition.[vc_single_image image=”11622″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]\u201cWe\u2019ve surprised ourselves at how well we\u2019ve done in a short period. I find myself sitting here and smiling, pleased that we\u2019re here and seeing all these amazing players. We want to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mereana-Ngauru joined the association in 2016 and became President the next year, and recounts the early conversations with his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven years ago we decided that we\u2019re starting our association again, after years of watching it go up and down. We sat around and said, look, we need to start doing more with our kids, more development, to sustain our sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we did that, starting with Shuttle Time and going to the schools. The kids we have here have all come through Shuttle Time. So we have been able to watch it go from Shuttle Time to development programmes to this competition here. For us it\u2019s been a lot of hard work over the years and sort of wondering if it\u2019s all worth it, if we\u2019ll ever get anywhere, but we\u2019re here, and actually being competitive as well. It means everything; it\u2019s the reason we do this.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”11621″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]The Cook Islands consist of 15 islands scatter over 2 million square kilometres in the Pacific Ocean. Shuttle Time is mainly focussed in the capital Rarotonga, but the programme has been expanded to two of the outer islands.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s singles player Daniel Akavi says he hadn\u2019t even heard of badminton seven years ago. Once he was introduced to it through Shuttle Time, everything changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time, I was like, it\u2019s not for me. I thought it was easy, but I was obviously wrong. What interested me was that it was difficult to play and I wanted to try something new,\u201d said Akavi. \u201cBut then I thought it\u2019s challenging, and I like being challenged.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Juniors is making me want to play at a higher level. Next year I\u2019ll go to university. And then it\u2019ll be my first time to see how New Zealand train. If I go to New Zealand for university there, I want to see how high-intensity training is like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m now more hungry, having watched these top level players. After watching those my age play the top level, this is inspiration for me to try my best and be like them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Akavi is a Shuttle Time Youth Leader who completed the Shuttle Time Youth Leadership Workshop<\/a> <\/em><\/span>and he was featured in the Human of Shuttle Time campaign<\/a><\/span><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Vital Stats \u2013 Cook Islands<\/strong><\/p>\n

11 Shuttle Time Teachers courses delivered
\n129 Shuttle Time Teachers trained
\n1,179 Children engaged
\n01 Shuttle Time Youth Leadership Workshop delivered
\n12 Shuttle Time Youth Leaders trained[\/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”11627,11626,11624,11623,11622,11621,11620,11619,11628,11629,11630,11631,11632,11633″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships 2023 marks a landmark for Cook Islands as they make their debut at a BWF event. Their participation is a Shuttle Time success story, for all six members of the team have come up through BWF\u2019s flagship schools programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2630,"featured_media":11626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-new","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11639,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11617\/revisions\/11639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/development.bwfbadminton.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}